my first reaction to “the news”

I was going through my old Facebook posts, as far back as 2008, and found this post. This was during the days before you could like posts and there were no comments section so people posted their replies on your walls. I see so much posts there from friends and I don’t know what they are replying to. It’s quite fun, actually, when Facebook was still new and we didn’t know how to use it and what the implications of the site held.

Back then, I was very cryptic about my status updates or figurative in my use of language. I was playing with thoughts and puns and witticisms and I had Facebook status updates like:

Wanggo Gallaga is an idiot. He can’t read minds either.

Wanggo Gallaga is not afraid of the clouds and their silver lightnings.

Wanggo Gallaga is two laughs away from madness.

Wanggo Gallaga is building an ark. Not everyone is invited.

Wanggo Gallaga wants to know what’s behind Door #2.

Wanggo Gallaga has self-distracted. He can’t get anything done!

Interesting stuff, really. Back then, it was always the profile’s name and then a sentence, so it had to be a full-on sentence that began with you as a subject. That’s why they are all structured that way. It was an interesting exercise in self-absorption, really.

Some, I knew what I was trying to say or what I really wanted to say but not saying it out loud, so to speak. It’s quite interesting. I saw one where I said:

Wanggo Gallaga is a knife away from the throat. Whatever that means!

I don’t know what it means but the whole “knife away from the throat” sounds like a line I can use in a poem. It’s such a strong image. I can’t wait to figure that out into a poem very soon.

Without thinking about it, I came across this update:

I took one look at the date and knew immediately what this was in reference to. I had just found out that I was HIV positive and it was the first post I made that day, the moment I got back from the clinic.

I remember coming home and my sister was in bed (we shared the same room back then) and she asked me how my day was. I was already at the point in my life where I was trying to quit lying and I was trying to figure out how to properly answer the question without lying and couldn’t think of a way so I told her the truth: “I am positive.”

She sat up and asked, “What do you mean?”

I told her and she began asking me questions like “What did the doctor say?” and “What happens now?” And she got up, went to the computer and began researching on the Internet for information. She told me to tell my parents and call them up in Bacolod.

I have no idea if I posted that update before or after I spoke with my mom. But I obviously posted it on the day I found out. For me to have posted that, I must have felt reassured already. I must’ve known that I could fight this. That’s pretty amazing.

I would like that status update if I believed in liking your own posts but I don’t. So I won’t like it.

But I can see, back then and that early, that I was going to fight.

Lo and behold! Six years later, here I am, stronger and wiser than ever. Healthier than I’ve ever been in years.